The principal of the Government Secondary School, Asabe Kwambura, where 125 students were kidnapped recently has stated that she mistakenly handed over the 129 schoolgirls to Boko Haram gunmen, who posed as military men.
Speaking with Associated Press reporter, Jon Gambrel, the principal said, “the insurgents arrived after midnight at her Government Girls’ Secondary School, wearing military fatigues and posing as soldiers.
She said she believed them when they told her that they needed to move the girls for their own safety.
So, she allowed the extremists posing as soldiers to load the students on to the back of a truck.
“It was only as the armed men were leaving, and started shooting, that she realized her mistake. The militants killed a soldier and a police officer guarding the school,” she said.
Meanwhile, there is confusion over the status of the girls said to have been rescued by the military on Wednesday. The school principal told Associated Press that the students were yet to be found.
“Up till now, we are still waiting and praying for the safe return of the students , the security people, especially the vigilance groups and the well-meaning volunteers of Gwoza are still out searching for them. The military people, too, are in the bush searching,” the principal, Asabe Kwambura, told The Associated Press by telephone.
She said only 14 of the 129 girls and young women kidnapped by gunmen before dawn Tuesday had returned to Chibok town - four who jumped from the back of a truck and 10 who escaped into the bush when their abductors asked them to cook a meal.
Major General Chris Olukolade, the Defence Ministry spokesman, had in a statement late Wednesday night, said that all but eight of the students had been accounted for. “The others have been freed this evening,” he said. He also said security forces had captured one of the abductors.
